High-speed multispectral fluorescence lifetime imaging implementation for in vivo applications

Opt Lett. 2010 Aug 1;35(15):2558-60. doi: 10.1364/OL.35.002558.

Abstract

Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) offers a noninvasive approach for characterizing the biochemical composition of biological tissue. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the application of multispectral FLIM for medical diagnosis. Central to the clinical translation of FLIM technology is the development of robust, fast, and cost-effective FLIM instrumentation suitable for in vivo tissue imaging. Unfortunately, the predominant multispectral FLIM approaches suffer from limitations that impede the development of high-speed instruments for in vivo applications. We present a cost-effective scanning multispectral FLIM implementation capable of achieving pixel rates on the order of tens of kilohertz, which will facilitate the evaluation of FLIM for in vivo applications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cricetinae
  • Diagnostic Imaging / methods
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Equipment Design
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Lasers
  • Microscopy, Fluorescence / methods*
  • Mouth Neoplasms / pathology
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted